The Virgo New Moon is upon us, a quick moment in time that sets a fresh pace and tone for what is to come. The long days of summer's height have given way to earlier evenings, a subtle yet welcome change that draws us more deeply within, if only by a hair or two, as we make our way to Autumn’s true approach. But alas, we’ve one more season yet to bask in the warmth of the days and the sun’s rays that keep us from lighting the hearth fires just yet, and instead invite us to soak up all we can of the late summer season.

In Chinese Medicine, Late Summer is governed by the earth phase of the Wu Xing (5 Phase Cycle). Associated with the Spleen, this is a time of gathering our resources and of drawing them deeply into ourselves. The earth phase is one that invites us to collect what is helpful and beneficial in our lives into the center of our beings, reestablishing healthy relationship to the rituals and practices that allow for recalibration in the day-to-day, week-to-week, and month-to-month. The Spleen wants us to choose foods that are nourishing for our digestive systems, providing healthy and clean energy with which to make our bodies. It asks us to slow down our paces in order to support our body’s capacity to truly reside in the core of our being-ness, the place where we are conncted both to our own physical tissue and our cosmic selves, and thus the place where we are able to find an embodied synthesis of the two.

The psycho-emotional aspect of the Spleen is the Yi, often translated as, ‘the intellect,’ and that which helps us organize ourselves, mentally and otherwise, toward a task or goal that is meaningful. I appreciate the way Ted Kaptchuk describes this aspect of self: “the Yi enables [both] creative vision and proper courses of action. The Yi is associated with the Spleen, and disharmonies may lead to worry and overthinking (perseveration).” Careful to read here that ‘perseveration’ is not ‘preservation’. Just making sure we’re on the same page with this, as an imbalance in the function of the Spleen will definitely lead to rumination on thoughts that spiral us one way or another, though generally not out of the specific thought pattern, but more deeply into it in a way that creates more internal distress and discord, placing more stress on the entire system, including (but not limited to) digestive issues. Because we’re in the midst of Virgo Season, whose shadow function may also lead to obsessive thought patternings, this topic becomes even more significant.

The Virgo New Moon falls on September 2nd, 2024, and forms both a square with transiting Jupiter in Gemini and an opposition with transiting Saturn in Pisces. I wrote a bit about this last post, but suffice to say that Saturn wants us to be doing something productive with our creative vision, our mystical selves, and our intuitive knowing. He wants us to create healthy boundaries when it comes to our ability to truly know, heartily nourish, and fully embody our innermost nature, the part of us that is always connected to a place of limitless potential. Because the New Moon is opposing Saturn, it gives us an opportunity to create healthy habits and form life-enhancing patterns (daily, weekly, monthly) that help to organize our lives and ourselves within them so that these practices bear fruit in the ways we always knew they could. The Virgo-Pisces axis makes what is otherworldly and always tapped into the limitless potential of reality actually probable, useful, and real. In other words, if we want to bring forth the infinite potential of who we really are, we need grounded, applied ways to do so. Otherwise, we’re floating in the expansive Cosmos without a clue as to how to make our dreams real, or conversely, we’re overthinking about how to make our dreams happen without any traction to birth them properly. OR we’re overtaksing ourselves in countless ways, exhausting our bodies, minds, and spirits without giving ourselves the resources or energy to create new systems that actually support our success.

Drawing back into the center is the Spleen’s gift, but it’s also a hugely important one for Virgo. When we are here, we are clear about how we want to engage our lives, bringing the potential of who we are and what we know we’re capable of into the world in ways that light us up, and in ways that our community is thankful for. This is more than helpful for Virgo, who is deeply fulfilled by being of service through the honing and refining of her gifts and her craft, seeing how this process makes all the difference in the world we share. He seeks to gift humanity with the excellency he’s cultivated over years of attention to detail and precise work that adds value to a world that is more than happy to receive it. Virgo needs carefully-dialed systems that allow the details to support the whole, but it must be able to lens out and sense the bigger picture, something that Saturn in Pisces is very helpful at doing on this New Moon.

Jupiter, which is creating a bit of friction with the Virgo-Pisces axis (and New Moon-Saturn axis) through its square in Gemini, wants us to expand our capacity to dream, yes, but also to open to new and different ways of dreaming, and ones that can help us make these dreams real by looking at reality from a varied viewpoint. Gemini wants us to let in new information and material so that we’re not overdoing what we have done for so long, but in just the right ways so the whole system isn’t necessarily getting overhauled all at once. It wants us to be open to looking at life from an alternate place of perception, welcoming curiosity when dealing with an old task or pattern so that we are pleasantly surprised when this fresh way of seeing and engaging things works swimmingly. It encourages adbhuta, which is the Sanskrit word for ‘wonderment,’ and ‘awe,’ for when we let this part of reality in, listening to both the hidden and overt ‘memos’ from the Universe, we are able to sense the magic that is all around us and deep within us, letting go of our grip just a bit to let the bigger reality lead us. Sometimes we all need a little help from the unseen realm, and Jupiter in Gemini can actually be that if we know which questions to ask, how to be receptive to life’s messages, and if we are able to shift our perception just so in order to read the signs and symbols coming our way. Too much information kills this impulse in just a moment, just as too little keeps us guessing and unable to even form a helpful question. Yet when we open to Life’s creative flow and the material it offers us, letting it inspire us, guide us, and assist us in making our cosmic dreams a practical reality, and one that is valuable to the world, we remember who we came here to be and what we’re capable of. In turn, our world is uplifted because of the gifts of each unique individual that comprises it, causing a ripple effect that inspires those around us and creates beauty and harmony in our communities.

On this Virgo New Moon, how do you support yourself with the practices and rituals that draw you into your center? How do you expand into your cosmic self, and how do you ground what you have found here into your daily, weekly, and monthly life? How can you open to life in ways that inspire you to shift your viewpoint and let it support your bigger creative vision?

May the Virgo New Moon bring just the magic you need, and may you remember the gift that you are and the unique value you bring in the midst of it.